KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday commuted the life term of a man and his three sons to 20 years in prison in a double murder case.

It pointed out defects in the investigation of the case and said that the police must take steps on a war footing to improve the capacity of their investigation.

A sessions court had sentenced Ghulam Rind and his sons, Misri Rind, Mir Mohammad and Mubarak to life in prison in 2014 for killing a man, Jummu, and his son, Nazeer Ahmed, in February 2010 in Thatta.

However, the convicts had approached the SHC against their conviction and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings, a single-judge bench headed by Justice Omar Sial converted the life imprisonment into 20-year term and ordered the release of appellants since they had already spent over 20 years in prison.

The bench in its judgement said that the evidence against the appellants was testimonies of three eyewitnesses, the recovery of hatchets, crime weapons, and medical evidence. But, it noted, the evidence of two eyewitnesses was far from being trustworthy or reliable and at the end of the day it was the prosecution’s case which was impacted.

Similarly, the bench said, another troubling trend was the advice of writer head constable (WHC) to the complainant to produce two eyewitnesses for the investigation of the case.

“This is a practice that is adversely impacting dispensation of justice. The police must, on a war footing, take steps to improve the capacity of its investigation department in every way,” it added.

The bench further said that the presence of eyewitnesses at the scene was mired in suspicion, the recovery of the hatchets was also not clear as two witnesses gave different accounts regarding seizure of the crime weapons and one of the witnesses about memo of recovery denying about his presence while the hatchets were not shown as being blood stained in the memo.

“I am cognizant of the principle that one doubt may be enough to acquit a person yet the potency of that doubt is perhaps an aspect which cannot be ignored as well.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2022